NDS Sees Growth in STB Middleware as Smart Cards Decline

NDS reported revenue for fiscal 2006 of $600.1 million, an increase of 8% compared to the previous fiscal year. Conditional access revenue increased; higher security fees resulting from growth in the number of authorized cards using NDS technologies were offset in part by lower deliveries of smart cards. Revenue from integration, development and support declined. Higher middleware development revenue in fiscal 2006 did not compensate for the prior year revenue from the migration of Sky Italia subscribers to NDS technology. License fees and royalties revenues continue to benefit from the company’s increased middleware shipments. The increase in revenue from new technologies was due to higher income from DVR technologies, the company’s Synamedia IPTV technologies, interactive infrastructure and gaming applications.

Recent developments include:

• Smart card deliveries for all of 2006 amounted to 24.4 million units, down from 30.8 million units in 2005
• Middleware deployments in set-top boxes reached 21.2 million units, up from 2.0 million units in 2005. Cumulatively, there are now 41.6 million set-top boxes using NDS middleware.
• Premiere, a pay TV operator in Germany and Austria, has chosen the NDS MediaHighway middleware solution to set-up an interactive platform paving the way into advanced digital TV services.
• Dutch satellite service provider CANALDIGITAAL has chosen NDS MediaHighway middleware for its new set top boxes in northern Belgium.
• SKY Italia launched the first ever interactive betting platform for the Italian market, using NDS interactive technologies, allowing SKY Italia customers the ability to place bets through two of Italy’s leading bookmakers across a range of sports and betting combinations.

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